A Backward Glance at Eighty eBook

“Life’s fevered day declines;
its purple twilight falling
Draws length’ning shadows
from the broken flanks;
And from the column’s head a viewless
chief is calling:
‘Guide right; close
up your ranks!’”

He was ill when it was read. A week from the
day of the meeting the happy, well-loved man breathed
his last.

JOHN MUIR

John Muir, naturalist, enthusiast, writer, glorifier
of the Sierras, is held in affectionate memory the
world over, but especially in California, where he
was known as a delightful personality. Real pleasure
and a good understanding of his nature and quality
await those who read of the meeting of Emerson and
Muir in the Yosemite in 1871. It is recorded
in their diaries. He was a very rare and versatile
man. It was my good fortune to sit by him at
a dinner on his return from Alaska, where he had studied
its glaciers, and had incidentally been honored by
having its most characteristic one named after him.
He was tremendously impressed by the wonder and majesty
of what he had seen, but it in no wise dimmed his
enthusiasm for the beauty and glory of the Sierra
Nevada. In speaking of the exquisite loveliness
of a mountain meadow he exclaimed: “I could
conceive it no punishment to be staked out for a thousand
years on one of those meadows.” His tales
of experiences in the High Sierra, where he spent
days alone and unarmed, with nothing but tea and a
few breadcrusts to sustain him, were most thrilling.

I was afterward charmed by his sketch of an adventure
with a dog called “Stickeen,” on one of
the great Alaskan glaciers, and, meeting him, urged
that he make a little book of it. He was pleased
and told me he had just done it. Late in life
he was shocked at what he considered the desecration
of the Hetch-Hetchy Valley by the city of San Francisco,
which sought to dam it and form a great lake that should
forever furnish a supply of water and power.
He came to my office to supervise the publication
of the Sierra Club Bulletin, and we had a spirited
but friendly discussion of the matter, I being much
interested as a supervisor of the city. As a
climax he exclaimed, “Why, if San Francisco
ever gets the Hetch-Hetchy I shall swear, even
if I am in heaven.”

GEORGE HOLMES HOWISON

Among the many beneficent acts of Horatio Stebbins
in his distinguished ministry in San Francisco was
his influence in the establishment of the chair of
Moral Philosophy in the University of California.
It was the gift of D.O. Mills, who provided the
endowment on the advice of Dr. Stebbins. The
first occupant appointed was Professor Howison, who
from 1884 to 1912 happily held a fruitful term.
He was admirably fitted for his duties, and with the
added influence of the Philosophical Union contributed
much to the value of the university. A genial
and kindly man, with a keen sense of humor, he was
universally and deeply respected by the students and
by his associates. He made philosophy almost
popular, and could differ utterly from others without
any of the common results of antagonism, for he generated
so much more light than heat. His mind was so
stored that when he began to speak there seemed to
be no reason aside from discretion why he should ever
stop.